The market share of complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) memory devices has been continuously growing, especially in view of the development of FLASH memory in which a single cell can be electrically programmable and a block, sector or page of the cells may be simultaneously electrically erasable. In recent years, the FLASH memory has found interesting applications in consumer products such as digital cameras, digital video cameras, cellular telephones, laptop computers, and personal digital assistants. Because portability of the consumer products is often a prerequisite by consumers, a reduction in the size of the consumer products continues to be a hot button. As a result, the functionality and capacity of the FLASH memory should be augmented, while, at the same time, maintaining or, preferably, reducing the footprint of the FLASH memory.